If a repairer discovers “‘I can’t do this because this is not available,'” they’re welcome to contact the National Automotive Service Task Force and file a Service Info Request, Executive Director Donny Seyfer told the Collision Industry Conference on Wednesday.

“Either I know where to go, or I call the OE that I work with … and they go pretty quickly,” he said.

There was “no question” that the collision repair industry delivered some “curveballs,” Seyfer said. Vehicles might not have been out on the market for very long — and sometimes repair procedures haven’t yet been written, such as for calibration, he said.

Often NASTF must fax a piece of paper with the solution because the procedure didn’t yet exist, he said.

The user answered “No” to the question of whether they reviewed the OEM website and reported that their research to date consisted of “Looked at you tube only.”

That inquiry didn’t work.

“Requestor has not done any home work, used OE sites or provided information that indicates this information is not available,” NASTF wrote. “It is available from several sources. Invalid request, requestor was emailed a response.”

“The 2019 Mazda 3 uses a new cloud based diagnostic platform called MDARS,” the user wrote. “We contacted Mazda and were told that it is dealer only at this time. We were told it is ‘at least a couple of months away’. Given that these vehicles are on the road and needing out of warranty repairs the equipment necessary to perform those repairs must also be available.”

NASTF replied May 28:

Sent a note to the Tool and SI manager at Mazda. Received the following response: Mazda Japan (MC) has been having issues with this new software (MDARS) for the 2019 Mazda3 that even our dealers struggle with. We continue to get updated versions of the software from MC every week with fixes and additions. Because of this, MC isn’t ready to release to the Aftermarket. I have sent a request to MC asking for a more accurate timeframe using this request as an example of why we need it for the Aftermarket as soon as possible. In this case, the vehicle would need to go to a dealer for BSM radar calibration.